Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Troy Anthony Davis in Georgia

Two days ago, the state of Georgia issued a death warrant in the
case of Troy Anthony Davis, requiring the state's Department of
Corrections to execute him by lethal injection between July 17 and 24.

There's
overwhelming evidence that Davis did not commit the murder for which he
has been sentenced to die. But Georgia's machinery of death is grinding
ahead anyway, despite pleas for mercy from a growing number of voices
including Amnesty International and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond
Tutu.

Late on the night of Aug. 19, 1989, Davis got into a fight
with a man outside a Burger King next to the Greyhound bus station in
Savannah. A 27-year-old cop named Mark Allen MacPhail, moonlighting at
the station as a security guard, ran to the scene and was shot to death.

No
murder weapon was ever found, and no physical evidence made it to
trial. But Davis - a 20-year-old tough known on the streets as RAH, for
"rough as hell," was convicted of the grisly killing and sentenced to
death on the strength of nine witnesses who claimed they saw him do it
or heard him confess to the crime after the fact.

Six of the nine
witnesses have since recanted their testimony, according to the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. A witness named Antoine Williams, who originally
testified that he saw Davis pull the trigger, signed a sworn statement
in 2002 that he had "no idea what the person who shot the officer looks
like," and now says he was pressured by cops to finger Davis.

And:

But none of these facts can change Davis' sentence, thanks to the
federal Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which
puts a time limit on when evidence can be admitted in state death
penalty cases.

Davis didn't have the aggressive legal help needed
to round up witnesses in time: Georgia is the only state in the union
that doesn't guarantee Death Row prisoners a lawyer during crucial
points in the appeals process.

Those who want to help save Davis'
life - a commutation would still leave him in prison without parole -
should write a short note to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles
and send it to Amnesty International, 730 Peachtree St., Suite 1060,
Atlanta, Ga. 30308. The letter can be faxed to (404) 876-2276.

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.